Afro-Colombians
Afro-Colombians, also known as Black Colombians, are Colombians who have predominantly or total Sub-Saharan African ancestry, these stand out for having dark skin. In the national censuses of Colombia, black people are recognized as 3 official groups: the Raizals, the Palenques and other Afro-Colombians.
History
Africans were enslaved in the early 16th century in Colombia. They were from various places across the continent, including: modern-day Congo Republic, DR Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali and parts of Togo, Benin, Namibia and Zimbabwe. They were forcibly taken to Colombia to replace the Indigenous population, which was rapidly decreasing due to extermination genocide campaigns, disease and forced labor.Enslaved African people were forced to work in gold mines, on sugarcane plantations, cattle ranches, and large haciendas. African slaves pioneered the extraction of alluvial gold deposits and the growing of sugar cane in the areas that are known in modern times as the departments of Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño in western Colombia.
The UNODOC reported 66% of the alluvial gold is illegally mined, with 42% of these illegal activities directly affecting Afro-Colombian communities.
In eastern Colombia, near the cities of Vélez, Cúcuta, Socorro and Tunja, Africans manufactured textiles in commercial mills. Emerald mines outside of Bogotá relied on African labourers. Other sectors of the Colombian economy, like tobacco, cotton, artisanship and domestic work would have been impossible without African labor. In pre-abolition Colombian society, many Afro-Colombian captives fought the Spanish, their colonial forces and their freedom as soon as they arrived in Colombia. Those who escaped from their oppressors would live in free Black African towns called Palenques, where they would live as "Cimarrones", or fugitives. Some historians considered Chocó to be a very big palenque, with a large population of Cimarrones, especially in the areas of the Baudó River. This is where Cimarrón leaders like Benkos Biohó and Barule fought for freedom.
African people played key roles in the struggle for independence from the Spanish Crown. Historians note that three of every five soldiers in Simón Bolívar's army were African. Afro-Colombians were able to participate at all levels of military and political life.
After the revolution, created "The Law of July 21 on Free Womb, Manumission, and Abolition of the Slave trade" in the Cúcuta Congress. This led to the creation of a Free Womb trade that existed until emancipation in 1852.
In 1851, after the abolition of slavery, the plight of Afro-Colombians was very difficult. They were forced to live in the jungles for self-protection. There they learned to have a harmonious relationship with the jungle environment and share the territory with Colombia's indigenous people.
Beginning in 1851, the Colombian State promoted mestizaje or miscegenation. In order to maintain their cultural traditions, many Africans and indigenous peoples went deep into isolated jungles. Afro-Colombians and indigenous people were often targeted by armed groups who wanted to displace them in order to take their land for sugar cane plantations, coffee and banana plantations, mining and wood exploitation. This form of discrimination still occurs today.
In 1945, the department of Chocó was created, the first predominantly African political-administrative division in the country. Chocó provided the possibility of building an African territorial identity and some autonomous decision-making power.
Demographics
In the 1970s, there was a major influx of Afro-Colombians into urban areas in search of greater economic and social opportunities for their children. This led to an increase in the number of urban poor in the marginal areas of big cities like Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá. Most Afro-Colombians are currently living in urban areas. Only around 25%, or 1.2 million people, are based in rural areas, compared to 75%, or 3.7 million people, in urban zones. The 1991 Colombian Constitution gave them the right to collective ownership of traditional Pacific coastal lands and special cultural development protections. Critics argue that this important legal instrument is not enough to address their social and developmental needs completely.Afro-Colombians are concentrated on the northwest Caribbean coast and the Pacific coast in such departments as Chocó, whose capital, Quibdó, is 95.3% Afro-Colombian as opposed to just 2.3% mestizo or white. Similar numbers are found in the port cities of Buenaventura and Tumaco where over 80% of the population is Afro-Colombian. Considerable numbers are also in Cali, Cartagena and Barranquilla. Colombia is considered to have the largest Black/African-descent population in the Hispanic World, and the fourth largest in the western hemisphere, following United States, Brazil and Haiti.
It has been estimated that only 4.9 million Afro-Colombians actively recognize their black ancestry, while many other African Colombians do not as a result of inter-racial relations with white and indigenous Colombians. Afro-Colombians often encounter a noticeable degree of racial discrimination and prejudice, possibly as a socio-cultural leftover from colonial times. They have been historically absent from high-level government positions and many of their long-established settlements around the Pacific coast remain underdeveloped.
In Colombia's ongoing internal conflict, Afro-Colombians are both victims of violence and displacement as well as members of armed factions, such as the FARC and the AUC.
African Colombians have played a role in contributing to the development of certain aspects of Colombian culture. For example, several of Colombia's musical genres, such as Cumbia and Vallenato, have African origins or influences. Some African Colombians have also been successful in sports, such as Olympic weightlifter Óscar Figueroa and footballer, Patrocinio Bonilla, also known as "Patrón".
Raizal people
The Raizal ethnic group is an Afro-Caribbean group living in Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, speaking the San Andrés-Providencia Creole.Top Afro-Colombian Urban Populations
Source: DANE| City | Department | Year | Afro-Colombians | Raizal | Palenquero | City's population | % Afro |
| Cali | Valle del Cauca | 2024 | 334,182 | 388 | 253 | 2,283,846 | 15% |
| Buenaventura | Valle del Cauca | 2024 | 280,882 | 62 | 47 | 324,130 | 87% |
| Cartagena de Indias | Bolívar | 2024 | 220,367 | 576 | 1,699 | 1,059,626 | 21% |
| San Andrés de Tumaco | Nariño | 2024 | 214,206 | 74 | 48 | 267,010 | 80% |
| Quibdó | Chocó | 2024 | 132,121 | 60 | 24 | 144,610 | 91% |
| Turbo | Antioquia | 2024 | 88,027 | 14 | 3 | 134,517 | 65% |
| Bogotá, D.C. | Bogotá, D.C. | 2024 | 73,960 | 1,193 | 245 | 7,929,539 | 1% |
| Barranquilla | Atlántico | 2024 | 69,161 | 332 | 845 | 1,334,509 | 5% |
| Medellín | Antioquia | 2024 | 66,054 | 351 | 70 | 2,616,335 | 3% |
| Riosucio | Chocó | 2024 | 53,205 | 5 | 23 | 63,383 | 84% |
| San Onofre | Sucre | 2024 | 50,915 | 26 | 4 | 57,051 | 89% |
| Jamundí | Valle del Cauca | 2024 | 50,681 | 26 | 5 | 181,478 | 28% |
| Apartadó | Antioquia | 2024 | 49,207 | 38 | 10 | 131,422 | 37% |
| María La Baja | Bolívar | 2024 | 47,481 | 3 | 3 | 50,897 | 93% |
Black ethnic groups by population
According to the 2018 census there are the following black ethnic groups:| Black group | Total population | Percentage |
| Raizal | 25,515 | 0.06% |
| Palenque | 6,637 | 0.02% |
| Others | 4,671,160 | 9.26% |
| Total | 4,944,400 | 9.34% |
Cultural contribution
Music
In Colombia, native songs and musical genres are characterized by an exchange of multiple energetic and progressive musical processes. Notable examples include bambuco, cumbia, and porro, which are examples of typical folkloric musical genres that can be traced to having an African origin, descent, or influence in style.Bambuco
The Bambuco has a unique indigenous origin, but is also composed of a multicultural tradition. The Bambuco is established in Colombia's central Andean and Cauca area and is played by string ensembles. The Bambuco combines elements of notations that fluctuate between a or meter, demonstrating its extreme flexibility. It can be portrayed in different instrumental variants such as the Bambuco fiestero or the contemporary Bambuco.It is believed that the Bambuco is a musical genre that inevitability was brought by the Africans when the first slaves arrived at Cauca region. There is also a relationship between Bambuco and the name of a town in French Sudan "Bambuk," and it has been theorized that this genre comes from that specific region. Another piece of evidence is the syncopation and other forms of rhythms within the same piece of music. African music utilizes syncopated rhythms just like Bambuco does. Others theorized different appearances of Bambuco in different locations of the country, but they all coincide in an African origin or inspiration for the formation of this musical genre. For instance, on the western side of what is now Mali, a century ago, a nation named "Bambouk" existed and potentially the name of bambuco was derived from this nation in Mali. In a country at the horn of Africa in Eritrea, there is a town called Bambuco. In Angola, there is a town called Bambuca and very close to that town there is another one called Cauca. Like mentioned above, the Cauca department is argued to be the place where the Bambuco genre emerged.
A different branch of bambuco emerged in the Pacific Coast of Colombia, the contemporary Bambuco. The pacific coast and the northern coast of Colombia have an Afro-Colombian population that surpasses the average in comparison to any other region in the country. In the region of Cauca at the coast and in between the Magdalena River, the most traditional black population is settled. Many slaves came in through the Cauca River or the Magdalena River, if they were to have come from the northern side of the country. On the other hand, the argument that the Bambuco evolved in the Pacific is supported by the biggest population of Afro-Colombians in the country residing in the department of Choco, on the Pacific coast. The Pacific coast is the only place in the country where the absolute majority is of African descent. The reason for the Pacific coast's vast majority Afro-Colombian population is not only due to its location and the rapid entrance of transportation of boats and slaves during colonization, but also due to emancipation around the year 1815. The act of emancipation led for the Pacific coast to become a refugee zone and develop into a safer place for slaves from the Choco area as well as those from the interior of the country and other urban sites throughout the country. This allowed for the Afro-Colombian population to grow in this region of the country and therefore develop within certain cultural characteristics such musical genres of African descent but are born or popularized in Colombia. With this evidence, although the Bambuco is not originally from Colombia, it became a national identity for many due to its multicultural composition. It has since spread from west to north in the country.